HOLYOKE -- Internal Police Department documents show superior officers investigating how a sergeant left his service gun in a store rest room and deliberations over what policies that violated and how the sergeant should be punished.

The 13 pages embedded below relate to a Nov. 24 case and are part of an inch-thick stack of internal police reports, memos between Police Chief James M. Neiswanger and other officers, duty rosters and dispatch logs related to two cases involving Sgt. John P. Hart.

MassLive.com will be posting additional documents from the Hart cases.

A Police Department Disciplinary Action Notice dated Nov. 24 and signed by Capt. David R. Pratt notes that staff at J.C. Penny store at the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside called the Police Station to report that a gun, which turned out to be Hart's, had been found in the men's restroom.

The call was logged into dispatch at 6:42 p.m., minutes before Hart, who was on cruiser patrol at the mall, walked back in to try to retrieve the weapon.

Pratt's Disciplinary Action Notice said Hart violated department regulations related to use and care of department equipment and competency in performance of duty.

Neiswanger suspended Hart 10 days without pay for leaving his gun in the J.C. Penny restroom.

On Sept. 28, 2011 at about 11 p.m., Hart left the station on Appleton Street driving his pickup truck. He placed a department-issued Remington 700 rifle, department-issued M 4 rifle and his personal Savage 308 rifle in the truck bed. At South and Northampton streets, a beeping driver alerted Hart that the pickup truck's tailgate was down, according to an Oct. 24 memo to Neiswanger from Lt. David D. Fournier.

Hart got out of the truck and saw that the Remington sniper rifle, which was in a protective case with a scope and bipod, were missing. The other two weapons were still there, the memo said.

Neiswanger suspended Hart five days without pay for the 2011 incident.

The sniper rifle was found Feb. 3, 2012 in an alley between Appleton and Essex streets after police received an anonymous tip.